This year, I spent Mipim with Russian property developer Mebe, which was making its debut appearance and I learnt two important lessons. Firstly, you can pick up a job at Mipim.  The stand was a hub for many other developers from Russia and during a conversation with one it became clear that they were looking for a specialist architect. Within 20 mins, I had them chatting with a UK architect and I understand that they are meeting in Russia next week. If only securing work was always as easy.

The second lesson is the power of images and how architects are using iPads in Mipim-like situations – informal ‘show and tell’ – but no less important. Nearly all architects now have an iPad to show their work which is great. However, very few have learnt the art of editing their material and segmenting the presentation.

Over the three key days, there were probably 30 architects who managed to make a mini presentation. All went through the same slightly bizarre mad finger swoosh as they quickly rattled through work that had no relevance to their audience and tried to get to the juicy stuff that would excite.

The client was patient for the first 10 times but then it starts to become frustrating. It sounds glib to imagine the commissioning of architecture in such basic terms but the reality is that most human interaction involves some level of instant attraction, so the trick is to make sure you get to the point as quickly as possible.

It’s worth investing in an interactive PDF presentation that features the best projects in very distinct categories. Some projects may appear in more then one category but that’s  fine. The aim is to create a presentation that satisfies and ignites interest from the viewer, not to satisfy office politics.

It was from a completely different perspective that I saw the unveiling of Richard Deacon’s ceramic cornice on the Piccadilly façade of the building, during an event that ING MEDIA organised on behalf of Eric Parry Architects and The Crown Estate on Wednesday 6th March.

The shroud covering the glowing and colorful cornice was lifted in front of an audience of leading figures from the world of art, architecture, property and local government including Eric Parry, Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate, Martin Roth, Director of the V&A, artist Antony Gormley, together with Alison Nimmo, Chief Executive of The Crown Estate, Robert Davis, Deputy Leader of the City of Westminster and Richard Deacon himself, seated on the top deck of an open top routemaster bus hired for the special occasion.

The 25 metre artwork is Deacon’s first sculpture to be integrated with a building and the result of a close collaboration with Eric Parry.

Formed of 39 individual, ceramic transfer sculptures – a technique never used on building facades before – the cornice recalls the energy of Piccadilly Circus and is set to be a notable new piece of public art in the area.

Leanne:

Photo: Grant Smith

On International Women’s Day I’d like to draw attention to the work of Sara Fox and Carla Picardi: Two women who were responsible for the conception, planning, construction and delivery of the truly iconic 30 St Mary Axe, otherwise known as “The Gherkin”

www.buildingthegherkin.com

Ben:

My chosen project is Folk in a Box, Designed by Cristina Monteiro with her husband and partner David Knight.

Photo: DK-CM

Created as the UK’s smallest music venue, Folk in a Box provides the stage for a performance of one song, by one musician, for an audience of one. The project was a hit at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, and has people effusively endorsing it wherever it appears thanks to the intimacy of the performances.

Folk in a Box is collapsible, and goes on tour with the musicians. Monteiro’s brief was to enclose a dark space, lit by a single incandescent bulb: so to produce an exterior with so much exuberance and wit is a mark of the joy she must have taken in the design. Everything about the project is generous and funny – my favourite feature is the shuttered stable door at the back of the box, which serves as both the musician’s entrance and the bar.

I couldn’t finish my post without linking to Folk in a Box collective’s video, The making of Folk in a Box, which I think says it all.

Giovanna: 

Photo: Juilen Lanoo

My favourite female architect of the moment is Kazuyo Sejima, co-founder of Tokyo-based architecture practice SANAA along with Ryue Nishizawa. They are the designers of the new Louvre museum in Lens that is a good enough building that it may just be able to lift a hugely rundown part of northeastern France out of its  post-industrial doldrums. It is, like a lot of their work, fluid, humble, elegant and intelligent all at once.

Tom:

I nominate Joanna van Heyningen, who employed me as a young graduate and who, together with her partner and husband Birkin Haward, inspired me to forge a career in the world of architecture.

RSPB Visitor Centre, Purfleet Photo: James Brittain

Her wisdom and steely determination are founded on a belief in the power of architecture to benefit people, of design for social and environmental good. From gems such as Newnham College Rare Books Library in Cambridge to the RSPB Visitor Centre in Purfleet, and West Ham Jubilee Line Station to the Sutton Hoo Visitor Centre, her work is humane, understated, functional and elegant.

I believe Jo’s greatest achievement is her practice, van Heyningen and Haward Architects. Her energy and passion have made it both a fun and fulfilling place to work.

Marcus:  

I’d like to nominate Amanda Levete, and in particular the new subway station she is creating with artist Anish Kapoor in Naples. Amanda was previously co-founder of Future Systems with her partner Jan Kaplicky before practicing under her own name.

Image: Amanda Levete Architects

The Universita entrance of  Monte St Angelo Subway station in Naples appears to have been pulled out of the ground to create a dramatic, almost primal form that forms a sly riposte to the countless phallic symbols created by so many architects.

The first time I realised the strength of the relationship between literature, buildings and history was when reading Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame Du Paris, a gothic, romantic melodrama that takes place almost entirely inside, or in the shadow of, Paris’s grand old church. Hugo devotes one of the early chapters entirely to a description of the cathedral and its history, revealing the way that the layers of its 200-year construction can be read as a record of the times they were built in.

Everything in the story feels carved from the stone of the cathedral, including the characters themselves: Quasimodo is undoubtedly Hugo’s embodiment of the “spirit” of the cathedral, and his redemption can be read as Hugo’s affirmation of the worth of the ancient edifice and the values it embodies in a Paris free-wheeling towards the uncertainty of the modern age.

In Celebration of World Book Day, I asked the rest of the ING Media team to suggest their favourite depictions of a space or a place in a book or a story. You can read their responses below. Why not use the comments section to add some suggestions of your own?

Enjoy the suggestions and Happy reading:

Giovanna:

In Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice the city becomes a metaphor for cultural decadence and physical and moral decay. Venice here is a place of paradox where Northern self-restraint and Southern sensuality meet. It is also a mirage; a representation of the will of man over nature; a beautiful, gleaming city that is built on rotten foundations. Likewise the book’s elderly and usually rational and cerebral protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach is slowly succumbing to the world of emotion and the senses. As his infatuation with a young Polish boy called Tadzio takes over the city around him is in the grips of a deadly cholera epidemic.

Tom:

In Iain Banks’ The Bridge, much of the action takes place in the comatose mind of Alex, a partner in an engineering firm. The world he finds himself in is an Orwellian, dreamlike transposition of the Forth Railway Bridge that contains a whole civilisation and extends for miles. Banks’ vivid description of the colossal industrial realm of the bridge gives the reader a powerful sense of place and Alex’s subconscious quest leads the reader on a journey into the darkest corners of his psyche.

Leanne:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – The mythical Howard Roark is the poster boy for every aspiring architect who believes that you will eventually triumph by never compromising on your beliefs or your art. Complete fiction but a great read.

Sophie:

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien: From the very first paragraph he transports you into his own imagination, you are where he wants you to be. I just want to be in Bilbo’s best rooms staring out across the meadows and gardens. The way this man writes is incredible:

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

“It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with paneled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill—The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.”

Ben:

I couldn’t resist a second bite at the cherry – WG Sebald seems to build stories entirely out of places and his elegiac narratives skip across continents and epochs to discover lost histories through strikingly personal stories. He’s not exactly a laugh a minute, but his books are as evocative and ghostly as a walk around an abandoned ruin. It’s entirely appropriate that the title character of his most famous novel, Austerlitz is an architectural historian. My other favourite Sebald is The Rings of Saturn, which is based around an actual 13 mile walk along the Suffolk coast, but which blew my mind with its expansive, time-travelling storyline.

Today’s topic was housing, or more specifically “Building for the Middle Market” and an impressive line-up of speakers, headed by GLA Deputy Mayor for Housing, Land and Property Richard Blakeway, batted the issue around from a number of different angles.

Given the plethora of conferences and other events in the architecture and property worlds, this morning’s format made a refreshing change. Held at Caravan – part of Argent’s hugely successful regeneration programme at King’s Cross – delegates were seated in the restaurant around tables and served a fantastic breakfast. The relative informality of this set up, as opposed to the more traditional lecture theatre style, gave the event an original feel.

What’s more, the content was as high quality as the food. Adopting a more panel-based format enabled conversation and debate, whilst allowing three distinct areas of the overall topic to be explored.

There is no doubt that delivering housing that the growing population of London can afford to live in whether renting, buying or a combination of both, is a huge challenge. The current Mayor, we were assured, will commit to delivering a million homes over the next 25 years but, as David Lunts, the Executive Director for Housing & Land at the GLA, acknowledged, there is almost no likelihood of construction speeding up so that supply meets demand, still less outstrips it.

I’m not sure that any firm conclusions were reached, no doubt the debate will continue over the coming months and years, but it was an enjoyable and informative event and we were even given  a goody bag, containing a copy of the just published ‘A House in the City’.

Perhaps it is the eclectic ideas the award brings together. Over 90 designs have been nominated in the categories of architecture, product, furniture, fashion, graphic, digital, and transport design. With few awards out there comparing a non-stick ketchup bottle to a new public library, it’s a chance to get a complete, multi-disciplinary snap shot of the design industry. With fond memories of swirling around in Heatherwick’s Spun chair and being memorised by Jason Bruge’s Mimosa lighting installation in previous Designs of the Year shows,  we are all looking forward to visiting the exhibition of the shortlist later in the year.

A special congratulations goes to Cathedral Group  – its  19,000 sq ft public library, located in the heart of Clapham, is on the impressive list of nominations. For more information about the project and its PPP financial model, read the Financial Times’ recent piece on the library.

Perhaps influenced by its sister fair Art Basel, Design Miami seems to merge boundaries between art and design. An impressive selection of galleries presented a combination of new and iconic collectible design pieces. Beautiful, elegant and minimalist the French and US galleries, with Galerie Patrick Seguin showcasing a collection dedicated to Le Corbusier and New York based  Demisch Danant Gallery a tribute to Pierre Guariche.

Notable the presence of luxury “bigs” Fendi, Perrier-Jouët, Swarovski and Audi, which commissioned some interesting projects. Perrier-Jouët’s ‘Lost Time’, designed by London-based studio Glithero, was particularly impressive. Inspired by Gaudí’s studies to create the perfect curve for the domes of the Sagrada Familia, Glithero presented a series of chain loops hung over a pool of water, producing a delicate yet very powerful installation.

I particularly loved Asif Khan’s installation for Swarovski Crystal Palace: ‘Parhelia’, a house-shaped structure covered with 1.5 million crystals.  Aiming to recreate an ice halo – an atmospheric effect typical of northern climates – Asif used the light of a single LED at night and the Miami sun – reaching the crystals through a hole on the pavilion’s roof – during the day.

The fair is small if compared to Milan or Cologne but there is no shortage of things to do in town.

Thursday at Design Miami is “the District night”. Mainly made up of old low-rise warehouses, after decades of decay, the district is now a popular destination for the arts, design, and fashion as most buildings and warehouses have been converted into high-end retail spaces, galleries and restaurants. The Design District is where big manufacturers like Poliform, Cassina, Bisazza, Boffi as well as Dior, Louis Vuitton and Christian Louboutin have found their spot and where traffic get congested amongst private views, glasses of champagne, high hills and camels (yes, there were camels on the street) during the design week, whilst venues like the Buena Vista Building offer a great location for temporary exhibitions like Inventory, de la Cruz Gallery and Architecture for Dogs, curated by Kenya Hara.

Miami is booming with new architectural projects by big practices and with my best personal guide Erika Morales, Creative Director at branding agency Lemon Yellow driving me around her cabriolet car, I couldn’t not taking the time for an architectural tour of the city.

Herzog & de Meuron, after completing the successful Parking Garage 1111 is now working on the new Miami Art Museum, due to reopen as the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) in 2013. The famous Bacardi Building, the modernist tower designed by Enrique Gutierrez in 1969, will be restored by Frank Gehry to house studios, offices and housing for artists of the National Young Arts Foundation and new developments by Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Fosters + Partners are also under the spotlight.

Although far from reaching Milan’s eclectic spirit and intrinsic glamour, one can certainly breathe design, art and architecture at Design Miami/Art Basel.

With a view to keeping the festive spirit alive, here’s a couple of our favourites from 2012:

• In January this year, one journalist did a shoutout on Twitter for any pet owners who believed their pet was psychic or had a sixth sense. We can only imagine what responses they got, beyond any pet octopi that may, or may not, have been able to predict football scores.
• In March, one journo was interested in “spaking to” a PR for some alcohol brands. We assume they’d already been on the ‘sauce’. Another request came through in June with just five words: “I need a whisky expert”, which may well have been a plea for help.
• Making sure the message truly reached the PR community, some journalists took to using CAPITAL LETTERS to reiterate requests this year. One of our favourites was when someone called for a “REFORMED ANIMAL HOARDER”, as if the profile itself wouldn’t have had a profound imprint on our memory.
• As an agency with its own food arm, we were baffled by a request that asked PR professionals for help on “chooding the right fish oil”. With so many out there, we just didn’t know how we’d be able to ‘chood’ one ourselves.
• Someone asked for tips for college students and school pupils in “acquring emplyability skills”. Spelling could have featured highly in the responses for that one.
• Lastly, one journo had a request for modern mums who juggle various “’oles”. They said it was for a national UK press outlet, but didn’t specify the nature of that particular publication. We assume it must have been for a strictly adult audience.

Let us know if you spotted any others that caught your eye… No doubt there’ll be more from us next year.

From all of us at ING MEDIA, have a wonderful break.

Enjoy yourself this Christmas — you’ve definitely earned it.

Maybe it’s an age thing, but every year Christmas just “sneaks up” on me. One minute it’s July and you are ticking the obligatory “office party” menu (how do I know if I will fancy the Christmas pudding or chocolate brownie half a year away?). The next minute a waiter is reminding me of what I actually ordered all that time ago (should have stuck to the cheese platter).

But what does the Christmas period actually mean for practices and businesses, and how can you use this time to revive the creative spirit? The office party is an important marker for everyone to celebrate success or simple survival. The year is almost over, and you got to the end together as a team. Enjoy it. (Apparently survival is the new success).

Pushing the party to January disrupts the natural business order. Clients will forgive the whole office being closed and incoherent in December. The same situation in January will irritate them. Remember that January is the time when “detox” is the rage, and most of the client world is deprived of alcohol and carbs. That energy and angst needs to be channelled somewhere — make sure it’s not in your direction.

Close the office or keep it going with a skeleton staff? Only you will know the pressure of your deadlines and projects, but where possible I would really urge you and your teams to take a break.

The reason is simple. The Christmas break is now the only time of year when you can actually mentally stop. Mobile devices and international time zones mean that we are now all shackled to instant communication and that is not healthy.

Everyone, regardless of their level, needs time to pause, think and rest the brain. Architecture is a creative endeavor and the demands of modern business mean that less and less time is devoted to just thinking.

Use this one time of the year when clients will accept that you are unavailable to turn off the phone and relax. We will all benefit from better buildings if you have a chance to rest and recharge. Have a wonderful break and see you in 2013.

This article was first published in Building Design on 11th December 2012.

Leanne Tritton